chicagoland GEographies
Black life in Chicagoland is often reduced to the iconic South Side through selected neighborhoods, community areas, blocks, and even streets that ignore the depths of the South Side and the Black livingness that exists on other sides of town and in the suburbs, villages, and unincorporated areas that make up the Chicago Metropolitan Area.
To make sense of the geography in our work, we have included information to help you understand how Chicagoland is spatially organized and where our images and sound installations were taken, contested, and remade by capturing the geographic fullness of our people. The geographies of Chicagoland are intricate, contested, and always shifting. They consist of various definitions, understandings, and lived realities that are both subjectively and objectively defined by residents, real estate companies, and governing bodies in the city, suburbs, villages, and towns that make up the city-region.
CHICAGOLAND
A colloquial term that refers to the Chicago Metropolitan Area reflecting the social, political, economic, cultural, ecological, and geographic relations between Chicago and its northern, southern, eastern, and western hinterlands. These hinterlands include satellite cities, suburbs, villages, and unincorporated and rural areas. Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, introduced "Chicagoland" in the 1920s.
Chicagoland stretches across Northwest Indiana, Northeast Illinois, and Southeast Wisconsin although it has no official or legal boundaries. The United States Census Bureau established the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area (Chicago MSA and Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, Il–In–Wi Metropolitan Statistical Srea) in 1950 based on economic activity and population density in the city-region.
Photo Credit - Deviant Art
community areas
Chicago is divided into 77 community areas designed by the Social Science Research Committee at the University of Chicago in 1920. These boundaries remain static in order to gather data about the city that can be analyzed across time. Five criteria to denote community area boundaries include:
- Settlement, growth, and history of the area
- Local identification with the area
- Local trade area
- Distribution of membership of local institutions
- Natural and artificial barriers
Chicago was originally broken down by 75 community areas. However, a 76th community area (O'Hare) formed when Chicago annexed O’Hare International Airport in the 1950s. In 1980, the community area of Edgewater separated from Uptown creating the 77th community area. Most Chicagoans do not recognize community areas as the places in which they live and many are unaware that they exist. Click here to access an interactive community area map.
Check the list below for all community areas organized by name and number. To denote where our images and sound recordings are taken, we include the name and number of the corresponding community area.
Photo Credit: WBEZ
neighborhoods
Chicago is known as the “the city of neighborhoods” due to the large number of neighborhoods throughout the city. Each neighborhood has unique, identifiable characteristics and most Chicagoans recognize neighborhoods as the places in which they live, work, and socialize. Because of this, many places where Black Chicagoans live do not appear on most maps of Chicago and the larger city-region.
Neighborhoods are located within community areas and some even share the same name of the community area that they are located in (e.g. Rogers Park) while others do not (e.g. Bronzeville is a neighborhood within the community areas of Grand Boulevard, Douglas, and Oakland). Community areas and neighborhoods are often used interchangeably by Chicagoans, but there are significant differences, including size, boundary, and historical change.
In 1993, the city council approved a map of Chicago neighborhoods stemming from a community survey that was conducted in 1978. Click here to access an interactive version of this map. Still, according to the City of Chicago, "City government does not recognize or use Chicago neighborhood boundaries for any official purposes."
Photo Credit: Giordanos
sides of town
Chicago consists of various "sides of the town" based on cardinal (north, south, east, west) and intercardinal (northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast) directions that have identifying markers. The city recognizes three sides of town (north, south, west) represented by the white stripes on the city’s flag. These regional divisions are defined by the Chicago River, though the boundaries vary among Chicagoans and real estate companies. Also, if you listen close enough, you can hear the distinct ways Black Chicagoans identify various sides of town, including out south (south side), out west (west side), up north (north side), and over east (east side).
Based on the street numbering system, Madison Street is the north | south dividing line and State Street is the east | west dividing line. The South Side (the largest side of town) is defined as the community areas that are south of the main branch of the Chicago River. The North Side (most densely populated side of town) consists of areas that are north of the main branch of the Chicago River. The West Side (the smallest side of town) maintains community areas west of the Chicago River. The city does not recognize an East Side (not to be confused with the East Side community area) due to Lake Michigan, which dominates the city’s most eastern boundary.
There is no East Side listed on the corresponding map. However, some Chicagoans (including both of us) and real estate companies recognize an East Side and a distinct culture connected to it.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
suburban subregions
Chicagoland is a unique city-region due to its complex makeup of suburban subregions decorating the outer ring of the city from its north, south, and west sides. These suburban subregions — the North Shore, the Northwest and West Suburbs, and the South Suburbs — consist of suburbs, vllages, and unincorporated areas. Some communities predate Chicago due to founding dates while others were established after Chicago was incorporated in 1837.
The North Suburbs — also known as the North Shore — is north of the city and includes Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Northbrook, Lake Forest, Winnetka, and Glencoe.
Northwest Suburbs — Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Niles, Buffalo Grove, Rosemont, and Palatine.
The West Suburbs, which hug the most western border of the city, include Maywood, Berwyn, Oak Park, Melrose Park, Cicero, Oak Brook, and Naperville.
The South Suburbs include Blue Island, Chicago Heights, Orland Park, Park Forest, Tinley Park, Harvey, Flossmoor, Robbins, and Olympia Fields.
Photo Credit - Unknown
chicago southland (south suburbs)
Chicago Southland — also known as the South Suburbs of Chicago or South Suburban Cook County — is a suburban subregion consisting of 65- 70 suburban cities, villages, and unincorporated areas twenty miles south/southwest of downtown Chicago. The Southland stretches across Cook County (the county seat of Chicago, the most populous county in Illinois, and the second most populous county in the United States) and Will County (the county seat of Joliet, Illinois).
Several suburban cities, villages, and towns across the Southland — as some locals and media outlets call it — including Evergreen Park, Dolton, Blue Island, Chicago Ridge, Riverdale, and Calumet Park, border Chicago on its south, southwest, and southeast sides. There are over 800,000 residents who call Chicago Southland their home, and many Southlanders work, socialize, and have family, friends, and colleagues who live in Chicago while maintaining long-standing roots in the suburbs back to the mid to late 1800s.
Chicago Southland also has the largest population of Black suburban residents in Chicagoland. Despite ongoing systemic struggles preventing many Black Americans from purchasing a home, the Southland has some of the highest rates of Black homeownership in the United States. In 2018, Pew Charitable Trusts recorded Black homeownership rates at 80% or higher in several Black suburbs in the Southland, including South Holland (85%), Flossmoor (83%), Matteson (80%), and Lynwood (80%). Olympia Fields, also a suburb of the Southland, has a 98% Black homeownership rate and an all Black board of trustees who govern their village.
Photo Credit - Visit Chicago Southland
collar counties
The North Shore, Northwest and West Suburbs, and South Suburbs are also part of the Chicago Metropolitan Area Collar Counties. The Collar Counties consist of five administrative counties, including McHenry, Will, DuPage, Lake, and Kane counties with each surrounding Cook County.
Chicago is the county seat for Cook County (or what some Chicagolanders call “crook county" due to its history of political corruption, high taxes, unjust legal system, and racism) and remains the center county of Chicagoland. Cook County also has the biggest population with the remaining Collar Counties maintaining the largest number of residents across Illinois. Each of the suburban subregions of Chicago overlap at least two of the Collar Counties with some fitting within the boundaries of Cook County.
Photo Credit - Railia and Associates